Much Ado Over Melania #Trump’s Speech

Much Ado About Nothing (William #Shakespeare) over Melania Trump’s speech at the #RNC in #Cleveland. The media is comparing it to Michelle #Obama’s speech in 2008. Her speech was downgraded from an A to a D- in the Court of Public Opinion. I suppose if she had said “Four score and seven years ago,” (#AbrahamLincoln) someone would say she plagiarized from President Lincoln’s address at #Gettysburg. Had she quoted “In the beginningGodcreatedthe heavens…” (God, Jehovah, or Moses) the media would claim she stole that line from God.

It was certainly a “dark and stormy night” (Edward Bulwer-Lytton or maybe Snoopy) in Cleveland at the RNC convention. I’m sure in the future, Melania will “Nevermore” (Edgar Allan Poe) quote someone without giving them full credit. Remember “Let no one’s work escape your eye; plagiarize, plagiarize.” (Unknown).

Monte, your satire obfuscates your intentions here but, as someone who has written speeches for others, I am compelled to say something. Ms. Trump’s arrogance is not a fiction and was put on full national display at her choosing. She chose not to use the speechwriters’ hired to do the the job. She chose (NYT) to lift exact sentences and phrasing from the current 1st lady’s 2008 speech. The media did not make her do that. As a teacher of the English language I would have failed her – or at least given her the chance to redo for a passing grade of 65. But she is not an adolescent she is a 46 year old woman quite used to doing and getting what she wants on her terms because she is beautiful; beauty connotes power for women just as money does for men. But you know this. Would you have written this same blog if, say, Ms. Trump were a sixty-five-year-old retired, matronly teacher? Alas, you too seem blinded by beauty.

That there are those who would minimize Ms. Trump’s transgression is not lost on the African-American community either. Consider Ms. Obama’s reception by the media and Americans in general had she plagiarized the 2000 RNC speech of Laura Bush?

Finally, the phrase from Genesis, “In the beginning…” was written by a man (mere mortal) not God.